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Show NOT NATURE, BIT GOD THE AUTHOR Of NATURE A Miracle Is as Probable as. Creation anas an-as Capable 9f Proof as the Existence of the Inverse. (Written for the Intennountain Catholic.) In combatting athoii-m the Catholic Church of today stands relatively in the same position that. , the synagogue stood in defending the true knowledge' know-ledge' God against the Gentiles before the coming com-ing of Christ. The Gentiles were those Avho did not profess Judaism, and who. long before the coming- of the Messiah, had fallen away from the knoAvledge of the true God. for the Creator they had substituted the Avorship of the. creature. Each nation had its own form or religion, which formed a part of their national existence. Alt maintained a plurality of gods, each of whom had a-special sphere of action. Nature, in each department, de-partment, was presided over by its deity, nor were the human passions overlooked in the pantheons. The Phoenicians Avorshipped at the temple of As-tartc, As-tartc, the Greeks bent their knee to their Aphrodite, Aphro-dite, whilst the Romans had their Venus, the goddess god-dess of sensual love, whom they identified Avith thp Greek Aphrodite. Rut the Romans though worshipping wor-shipping at the shrine of Venus, had their Vesta also, a virgin goddess in whose temple virgins only serA-ed. The esteem in which those virgins were held and the honor paid to them show that chastity was highly regarded and respected even by the Romans. The first seats in their theatres Avere reserved for the virgins, if perchance their eyes fell upon a criminal, the chains, which fe.t- . tered him, were broken loose and he Avas liberated; the consuls, Avhen in their presence. Avere bound to stand and uncover their heads, whilst the Victors, on meeting them in the public streets, were bound to lower their faces. WTiilst the Gentiles, after their eparation from the synagogue, belieA-ed in a plurality of gods, yet they recognized one supreme, deity as presiding presid-ing over all the inferior gods. With the Hindoo Eralima reigned supreme, with the Romans Jupiter Jupi-ter ranked first, the Greeks had their Zeus, and the Persians their' Ormuzd. The Phoenicians, Egyptians Egypt-ians and Greeks, who acquired a knowledge, of sculpture carved statues of their gods paying to these idol the worship formerly paid to the -powers which they represented. After the conquest of the Greeks by the Romans, the latter becoming acquaintd with the works of art of the former. erected statues to their gods, thereby introducing idolatry into a country where it Avas unknoAvn before be-fore the conquest. Up to the advent of the Redeemer the issue between be-tween the Israelites, who Avere the chosen people of God, and the Gentiles, was one Supreme Being, and a plurality of gods. Adhering to the original rcAelation; "in the beginning God created heaven and earth, a portion of mankind. (1) through the light of reason properly used. (2) up to the time of the flood through rcA-elation. and (3) after the: flood by. the selection of one people from the many l inhabitants of the earth, retained a true knowledge know-ledge of God as Supreme Reing and Creator of all things. On the other hand the Gentiles, as the.v increased in numbers and spread over the earth, forgot the Creator and turned to the creature which they deified. For the worship of the one ' true God, they substituted the idolatry of man and nature. The reasons for this terrible change are obvious; (1) because they had no public authority author-ity commissioned to preach the truth, and (2) because be-cause the passions, ay hi eh tend to turn man's mind away from God, were their gods. The issue today is the same. t All modern theories, religious and scientific j tend toward atheism, because they strive to ex- I plain the origin of all things without recognizing God as man's first and final cause. In the same way, in forming an ethical code, they ignore God the Creator, as the basis of virtue, and instead of the creatiA-e act, Avhich gives God supreme dominion domin-ion over man, their ethical code is founded in self-interest, self-interest, utility, instinct, or in what, as some term it, a moral sentiment. Their principles embrace em-brace every imaginable theory Avhich excludes the creative act, whether they say "act according to truth, or to fitness of things," the effect is that the farther they are removed in time from the tru source of true knoAvledge, the farther they are from the true knowledge of God. "Pas a pas on va bieli loin" is a French proA-erb (step by step one goes a long Avay), and when applied to the religious relig-ious meandering of the human mind in its scientific scien-tific and philosophic theories of God and morality moral-ity it winds up at zero. What was formerly termed polytheism has been since the adA-ent of Christ designated generally gener-ally as paganism, because the pagan (peasants, or those living in rural districts) were the last to j embrace Christianity. In AvhateA-er form, or under un-der Avhatever name polytheism, pantheism, or paganism, pa-ganism, ancient and modern may be viewed, two things are absolutely certain, (1) that is subsequent subse-quent to theism, and (2) not being theism, it is atheism in its last analysis. As such it must be refuted. re-futed. But as theism is older 'than atheism it . stands in possession and can not be ousted by simple denials. Science does not disprove, according ac-cording to the admission of the cosmic philosophers, philoso-phers, that God does not exist. IIoav then dispossess dispos-sess the belief in God '. We have given the plan to be adopted by those Avho take Mr. Fiske and Herbert Her-bert Spencer as their masters and guides, not by any logical argument founded on science that is opposed to the belief, but by generating "mental habits" that excludes this belief, as the spirit of the age excludes belief in spiritism and the supernatural super-natural in every form. Mr. Fiske in his lecture says: "But the belief has died out because scienti- v fic cultivation has rendered the mental soil uufifc : for it." Then he specifies; "so with Spiritualism, the modern form of totenism, or the belief in the ; physical intervention of the souls of the dead in human aairs . . ; The case is the same Avith the belief in miracles, or the physical inter- Continuect on Page 5. j NOT MATURE. BUT GOD THE AUTHOR OF NATURE Continued From Page 1. A'cntion of the Deity in human affairs." Then as to j the mode of upsetting all this, Mr. Fiske says: j "Hence it is that when the slowly dying belief in i miracles finally perishes, it, Avill not be because any J one Avill ever have refuted it by an array of syllogisms syl-logisms the syllogisms of the theologian and those of the scientist have no convincing power as against each other, because neither accepts the major promise of the other, but ibovill be because .the belief is discordant with the mental habits induced in-duced by the general study of science." But is this certain, that the mere training or ignoring or discrediting dis-crediting supernatural intervention Avill ultimately through mental habit, lead to the goal of unbelief. It is no new device. It Avas tried in France at the close of the. eighteenth century, and some of . the children of the greatest infidels became, after a thorough atheistical training, most ardent Christians. Christ-ians. Again as to the belief in miracles, which the writer says: 'Ms to the scientific thinker a priore so improbable, that no amount of historic testimony, testi-mony, such as can be produced, suffices to make him entertain the hypothesis for a minute." They may bo a priore improbable to Penan, Strauss, Spencer and Co., not however, as they admit, because be-cause science has proved that miracles are impos sible, but because they do not chime in with their philosophy, termed cosmic, Avhich denies the crea- j tivc act of God. Men of science and their equals ! man to man,' have belicA-ed in miracles, and at I ' best their pupils trained to the mental habit of disbelieving, Avhen they hear or read of some miraculous, mi-raculous, or apparently miraculous eA-ent, can only say, "I do not know," or, T do not care." The reason rea-son of this is clear, because before they can pronounce pro-nounce a miracle improbable and unprovable, they must first prove that God does not exist, and did not create all things, They admit that this can not be scientifically proven. Then if God does exist ex-ist he is of necessity supernatural and super-cosmic too, and the A-ery existence of the cosmos (the universe) is a standing miracle since time began. Miracle, even by those Avho declare it to be a priore improbable, is not understood in the Christian Chris-tian sense. What God does by himself, i. c, immediately im-mediately is a miracle. The natural is what transpires through agency of created causes, and Avhich God does immediately, i. e., through the medium me-dium of second causes. He is the first cause, and as the cause of causes acts mediately in all natural natur-al events. A miracle is then as probable as creation crea-tion and as capable of being proved as is the existence ex-istence of the universe. The unbelievers who, like Strauus, Hume, Fiske and Penan, say that miracles mir-acles are improbable because the testimony adduced ad-duced is not sufficient to prove the alleged fact, or supposed miracle, and that it is more probable that the Avitnesses were deceived or lied, than to believe that nature went out of its way ro work a miracle is no objection, because it misrepresents the real meaning and signiticanee of miracb . Xot nature, but. id the author of nature, works 1 the. miracle. Then nature did nor vary, char.go ! or go our of its way. In the Christian sense, nature's course and laws, when ih-miracle ih-miracle occurs. remain unchanged. The inrervenrion of tie siijn.-rnarur.il. which if at all must be above nature, is simply a new creation by that infinite power which creared nature, when Christ, gave life t- his own body, after being taken from the cross and placed in thf tomb ii was a new creation, as much as that of Adam and Eve in Paradise, Para-dise, and for tho former there, is the same ade-uate ade-uate testimony that there is for any fact, that occurs oc-curs within the laws of nature. It does not follow that what is improbable because unknowable to the cosmic philosopher, may nor. be probable and knowable to the Christian philosopher. One man's eras ignorance of what may be knowable to others is not a safe yard measure to determine knowledge; know-ledge; and whilst, as intended by Mr. Fiske. it may be used to produce a mental habit of unbelief, and may in reality lead to doubt, and agnosticism, yet it lacks what his pretension claim, viz., science, logic and philosophy. 1 I). |